FLORIDA. A Burger King in Palm Harbor drew seven high-severity violations in a single inspection this summer, the worst performance among 429 Florida locations inspected between May and August 2026, with citations ranging from improperly stored toxic chemicals to parasite destruction procedures that inspectors say were not followed.
The Burger King #4010 at 32375 US Hwy 19 N accumulated more high-severity violations than any other Florida location in the 90-day window. Inspectors cited the restaurant for improper handwashing technique, failure to use time as a public health control, no consumer advisory for raw or undercooked foods, food contact surfaces not properly cleaned or sanitized, and required procedures for specialized processes not being followed, in addition to the chemical storage and parasite citations.
That is eight total violations at one location, seven of them high-severity.
The Violations
The Burger King at 4704 Babcock St in Palm Bay drew five high-severity violations, including two of the most serious categories inspectors can cite: an employee not reporting symptoms of illness, and food from an unapproved or unknown source. Toxic chemicals were also found improperly stored or labeled, and food contact surfaces were cited as not properly cleaned or sanitized.
Food from an unapproved source is a distinct category from food quality concerns. It means the supply chain itself is unverified.
The Burger King #7299 at 16025 S Dixie Hwy in Miami was cited for inadequate shell stock identification and records, parasite destruction procedures not followed, food contact surfaces not properly cleaned or sanitized, no consumer advisory for raw or undercooked foods, and toxic chemicals improperly stored. An intermediate violation for single-use items being improperly reused was also documented.
Shell stock identification at a Burger King is not a routine citation. It means inspectors found shellfish on site without the required tags or records that would allow health officials to trace the product to its harvest source if customers became ill.
The Burger King 7257 at 1093 US 301 in Baldwin was cited for food in poor condition, mislabeled, or adulterated, alongside parasite destruction failures, unsanitized food contact surfaces, no consumer advisory, and improperly stored toxic chemicals. Inspectors also cited the location for multi-use utensils not properly cleaned.
The Burger King #9162 at 1007 NW 21 Ct in Chiefland accumulated the most total violations among the 10 locations, with five high-severity and three intermediate. Inspectors found no person in charge present or performing duties, an employee not reporting illness symptoms, food contact surfaces not properly cleaned, no consumer advisory, and improperly stored toxic chemicals. Intermediate citations included inadequate cooling and cold holding equipment, single-use items improperly reused, and inadequate ventilation and lighting.
The Burger King at 11834 E Colonial Dr in Orlando was cited for improper handwashing technique, food in poor condition or mislabeled, no consumer advisory, and two separate chemical violations: toxic chemicals improperly stored or labeled, and toxic substances improperly identified, stored, or used. Those are distinct citations, meaning inspectors found chemical hazards in two different categories at the same location.
The Burger King #28769 at 16130 NW US Hwy 441 in Alachua drew five high-severity violations with no intermediate citations, including an employee illness reporting failure, inadequate shell stock identification, food contact surface failures, no consumer advisory, and improperly stored toxic chemicals.
The Burger King #21396 at 2415 Thonotosassa Rd in Plant City was cited for an employee not reporting illness symptoms, inadequate handwashing by food employees, food contact surfaces not properly cleaned or sanitized, and no consumer advisory for raw or undercooked foods.
The Burger King #12 at 1910 NE 163 St in North Miami Beach drew four high-severity violations, including improper handwashing technique, food contact surface failures, no consumer advisory, and toxic substances improperly identified, stored, or used. Inspectors also cited the location for improper sewage or wastewater disposal, an intermediate violation that indicates drainage or plumbing failures inside the kitchen.
The Burger King No 46 at 2301 E Silver Spgs Blvd in Ocala added a citation that appeared at no other location in this group: no allergen awareness demonstrated. That violation, combined with improper handwashing technique, food contact surface failures, and improperly stored toxic chemicals, gave the Ocala location four high-severity citations. Three intermediate violations, including improper sewage disposal and inadequate cooling equipment, rounded out the inspection.
What These Violations Mean
The most common high-severity violation across these ten locations was food contact surfaces not properly cleaned or sanitized, cited at eight of the ten. Surfaces that appear clean but have not been properly sanitized harbor bacterial biofilms that transfer directly to food. The risk is not theoretical: this is the mechanism behind most restaurant-linked bacterial outbreaks, and it was documented at locations from Palm Harbor to North Miami Beach.
Toxic chemical violations appeared at nine of the ten locations, in one form or another. Improperly stored or unlabeled chemicals near food preparation areas can contaminate food directly, and mislabeled containers create acute poisoning risk if a worker mistakes a chemical for a food-safe product. At the Orlando location on E Colonial Dr, inspectors cited two separate chemical violations in the same visit, suggesting the problem extended beyond a single misplaced container.
The employee illness reporting failures at Palm Bay, Chiefland, Alachua, and Plant City represent a different category of risk. A worker who continues handling food while symptomatic with norovirus or Salmonella can expose every customer served during that shift. The violation does not require that an employee was actually sick, only that the system for reporting and removing sick workers was not in place or not functioning.
The no consumer advisory citation, found at eight of the ten locations, matters specifically for vulnerable customers. Elderly diners, pregnant women, and people with compromised immune systems need to know when a menu item contains raw or undercooked protein. Without that disclosure, they cannot make an informed decision about what they order.
The Longer Record
Statewide, Florida Burger King locations have accumulated 7,170 inspections on record, with an average of 4.28 violations per inspection and an overall pass rate of 87.41 percent. That pass rate means roughly one in eight inspections results in a failure, across a chain with 429 Florida locations.
The chain recorded zero emergency closures during the current year, which is a meaningful distinction. None of the ten locations flagged in this report were shut down. But the absence of a closure does not mean the violations were minor: seven of the ten locations each drew five or more high-severity citations in a single inspection.
The Chiefland location drew the most total violations of any site in this report, eight across five high-severity and three intermediate categories. The absence of a person in charge during that inspection is significant because CDC data links active managerial control directly to violation rates. When no one is supervising, violations in multiple categories tend to cluster, which is exactly the pattern inspectors documented at 1007 NW 21 Ct.
The Palm Harbor location's seven high-severity violations in a single visit remain the most concentrated finding in this 90-day window. Among those citations was a failure to follow required procedures for specialized processes, a violation typically associated with smoking, curing, or reduced-oxygen packaging. What a Burger King location is doing that triggers a specialized process citation, and whether inspectors found it corrected, is not resolved in the data.
